Egypt4u

What have we got to talk about? I think we are missing LLL’s daily contributions on many and varied subjects. I have started browsing the blue side again after a long absence but that is not the busy forum it used to be.

Missing people like Charlie and Stan who were good for a lively debate, and dear old Don who would always throw in a bit of humour. And Mary in the US who would always post with such rationale. The good Doctor Who in his various guises continues with his quirky posts but many old regulars seem to have withdrawn somewhat.

Any views?

Edit: I have deleted the rest of this post having had second thoughts. Sorry....

Great news for both you and your wife, Grandad! I have a friend who also has macular degeneration in both eyes and she is now registered blind. This particular friend has also had a heart attack; a stroke which has affected her speech and right hand; she is also deaf - and to top the lot, she was diagnosed earlier on in the year with vascular dementia! I sometimes wonder why some people seem to suffer every indignity going and others nothing at all, don't you?

Yes!!!!!!!!!

Be our guest if you have a topic that you would like to air, Choccy!

The rest of my post was of a personal nature and I decided that it was inappropriate. Perhaps another time.

Just where is LLL, Grandad?

Wish we had news of Winged Isis too!

I am not breaking a confidence because it has already been mentioned that she is on a cruise....I don't know where but, lucky lady she only got back from Trini a couple of weeks ago....
I assume she will be back with us around next weekend, she is a very active poster both here and on L4U.

We are hoping to get back to Luxor just one more time before the end of the year. I shall be 80 then and insurance will be prohibitive so Europe will be our destination in future years. I know there are lots of bad reports coming out of Luxor but we know so many people that we are quite happy to go. We have been going to Egypt for almost 20 years and it will be hard to accept that next time will be the last.
Anyone else planning to go???

I was planning on going in a couple of weeks time, but I forced myself to put emotions to one side and look at it logically, so I decided that it would be too hot for us to be able to do anything during the day and I will look towards the later months of the year and see if I can find a reasonable price then.

At the moment RS flights with Monarch in October are not bad, around £350. They are the only direct carrier because Egyptair go via Cairo from Heathrow. It would be October that we would look at if any carrier is still going direct. We stay in the Steigenberger, front Nile view room, 318 or 418.

We wouldn't go through the summer months....too damn hot

RS, I forgot to mention. The last time WI posted on L4U was 31 December last year. I do hope she is OK, I would PM but don't want to be intrusive. Have you corresponded with her in the past? If so a PM would be OK I would think....

I usually only spend one night in Luxor, Grandad, and that's enough, to be honest. Then we go straight to Aswan by road and come back on the day we fly back to UK. I haven't spent more than one night in Luxor since 2004. As to WI, yes I know she hasn't been on for an age and I did ask about her before but no-one seemed to know anything. I've only ever corresponded with her via pm, so.....................!

Well to add my two penny worth I think some of the problems go back a long way and it is the variation in topics that have diminished and often polarised the conversation over on the Blue side in particular, so you get trends developing. A question gets asked and before you read any replies you just know that ‘A’ will reply in a certain way, that ‘B’ will attack the poster, then ‘C’ will be the undisputed authority on the subject and that will happen on all subjects from history to tourism to cultural questions, so the majority don’t bother to post. Then if you dismiss the downright daft and unrelated posts that fall into the usually boring (for everyone else) category that people are too polite to comment on, then you have your answer.

I myself am completely aware that to be the person always making the posts or comments becomes tiresome to others reading the forum, but sometimes it is the only option left as otherwise there would be nothing going on. So when you get a situation that seems to have developed where just a few people continually make all the posts as happens over on the blue side then the others just sit back or drift away especially if they think they are not being accepted as part of the forum, or even insulted (as often happens) if they hold a different view from one of the regular posters.

Then we have the general lack of interest unless it is gossip or someone being slagged off or insulted in some way, then we get the polarisation of the ‘them’ and ‘us’ mentality when certain people all stick together. I personally feel that posts that go along the line of “we all had a wonderful dinner last night with great company, see you all next week” to be a total waste of space on any forum as they are telling the rest of the members nothing at all other than to say “we had a dinner party that you were not invited to it” so what was the point of telling everyone you held it, but then saying nothing about it? If it does not describe some event and entertain everyone else who reads it in some way then it is just a message that could have been passed via PM’s or email. Worse still are the ones who just post a link, but then add nothing, no comment and no opinion, just a “read this” sort of post, to be honest they may as well just be sticking and advertisement for takeaway pizza through your letter box inasmuch as you didn’t ask for it and you can’t be bothered to read it anyway, so throw it in the bin.

Finally we have the threads that we have spent many hours either typing up or compiling and editing pictures or videos and you hardly get a comment or just a few views, then what does that tell the person making that post when they see views = 10 or something similar? It says that others were not interested and you have just wasted a lot of your precious time to entertain just 10 people. In general not many members seem to want to read and discuss Egypt related (as in historical) items so once again the subjects of choice are limited, in the past I have posted articles about ‘Obelisks’ ‘Egyptian waterwheels’ and visits to other locations and all get a similar response with just the few regulars making a comment, so it is hard to know what to post at times.

Having read quite a few threads on the blue side in the last couple of days Horus, I think you have summed it up very well. In particular, and this is a personal hate but as you have said, those who just post a link without any comment. It either says, 'I'm good at Googling' or 'I know more than you but can't be bothered to discuss so look it up for yourself'

I don't object to the occasional 'obtuse' post about nothing in particular, but if it has an element of humour then that's OK. The odd joke can lighten proceedings if it is getting a bit heated.

As we may not be going to Egypt again, the benefit of L4U in answering questions is no longer relevant. That is why I find the very small but friendly group on E4U a pleasure to exchange views with and in particular mutual interest in hobbies, pastimes etc. An area that does not seem very popular on L4U. Time was when the photo comp was very well subscribed to but this month there are only 21 entries and as a member can post up to three entries, very few people would appear to be interested.

I will leave this post but I will now post the subject that I had intended to post yesterday.... see you in a minute

We don’t normally talk about personal stuff on here but I want to tell you something in evidence of progress in medical science. You may be aware that there is an eye condition called ‘Age Related Macular Degeneration’ AMD for short. Well, Mrs G has had the ‘dry’ version in her left eye for several years. This causes the loss of central vision and is untreatable.

During an eye test in January the optometrist detected evidence of the ‘wet’ type in her right eye. This is treatable if caught early but will otherwise lead to blindness. He made a referral to the local AMD clinic and she had an appointment within a week. Now to the point of this post………

During that appointment her right eye was photographed and scanned. She also had a scan which involved an intravenous injection via a canula. The out come was a three month course of injection into the right eye, once a month, with a drug called Lucentis. On Friday she had a follow up appointment when the eye was again photographed and scanned. I sat in when the eye doctor reviewed the original and latest images.

It was astonishing to see how the drug had removed fluids previously visible behind the retina surface and also removed a scar that previously indicated the presence of AMD had disappeared. There are no more injections planned at present but she will have a repeat of the photo imaging and scanning in six weeks, D Day, 6th June.

I am simply relaying this story as an illustration of how medical science and digital imaging has moved on in the recent years. The technician who did the photography said that not too many years ago this was done on roll film that had to go to Switzerland to be processed and this took 3 weeks. With digital the result is immediate.

Without this technology, drugs and photo imaging, blindness would have been the certain outcome….

Oh my God.

Choccy was that in surprise at Grandads post, or have you just seen an expat enter an historic site without showing a students discount card?

@ Grandad, I am really pleased for Mrs G that things appear to be improving a little and hopefully a great deal more in the comming months. Because of my own eye conditions I also have the retinal scan type photography done on my eyes and as you say it is amazing technology and my own specialist even looks and compares tiny blood vessels at the back of the eye to detect any changes by viewing these images. So again let us all wish Mrs G good luck and hope that the improvements get better and better.

Horus wrote:I also have the retinal scan type photography done on my eyes

I had mine done a week ago H. We should get copies and compare notes or convert to HDR

Grandad regarding your last but one post, there was a time and I am sure you can remember it when we had a good bit of friendly banter over on the Blue side and lots of different topics including funny poems, stories that dragged on for ever with us all being different characters on an adventure together, photographs being posted and a general good humoured banter. Slowly the mix changed and we even had some people complaining about photographs, the humbuggers slowly killed the humour and instead it became insults and intollerance replacing banter, so people stopped posting on a regular basis and some including myself even stopped altogether. Other new faces came to the fore and even the old fuddy duddies who were the original problem disapeared leaving a new group of people monopolising the forum and dominating most threads, but they had little in common with the old members who by then I suppose became even more reluctant to post. Occasionally one of the older members who still remain will ask where we have all gone and recall how much better it was and hope that they will return again, but too be honest I cannot see that happening as too much water has passed under the bridge and attitudes have changed, sad but true.


Edit to Grandads eye test post: They look even better when viewed on a big monitor

I made a comment on one thread yesterday H and then got a PM from one of the older (like early member) in very friendly terms asking about my well being and pleased to see me posting there again....We are not forgotten

But I do remember all that you mention but that was probably around 2006 and onwards for a few years. You are right though, we did used to have some fun with a number of competitions and a good balance of discussions and debate....